In fifth grade, most of spring is given over to preparing for the science fair. Lucy has been thinking about this for more than a year. Last summer, Lucy asked Jeanne (our awesome biochemist friend) what to do for a project and Jeanne suggested extracting DNA from strawberries. There is a fairly straightforward procedure for this online, but there had to be an actual scientific question involved, so Lucy decided to compare the amount of DNA in strawberries that had been genetically modified to strawberries labeled "non-GMO."
She compared two brands each of GMO and non-GMO strawberries, testing three samples of each.
She weighed everything very carefully to make sure there were exactly the same amounts of strawberry mush, DNA extraction liquid, and rubbing alcohol in each sample. I was very impressed with her precision!
Strawberry boogers (er, DNA) about to be weighed on the scale.
She found that GMO strawberries have, on average, about twice as much DNA as non-GMO strawberries.
The science fair was tonight, and Lucy had to present her posters and explain her experiment to three judges. She was very nervous and we did a lot of practicing. I didn't get to see the judging but Lucy said it went well and she felt great about it. Her friends did some fun projects, too: one tested scents to see which made crickets more aggressive, one held a daily chicken weigh-in to determine the best feed, one measured her own heart rate while swimming, running, and biking. There were colored grow-lights for plants, brain testing of boys vs. girls, and a method to determine whether someone was lying. It was very fun, and I think we have an amazing bunch of future scientists here!
Gavin especially liked the refreshments. I don't think he cares whether his strawberries are genetically modified or not.
